


Baby Birds

by auchterlonie



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Gen, Hurt, Phil and his team, Skye in the chamber, T.R.A.C.K.S., baby birds, monsters in the closet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auchterlonie/pseuds/auchterlonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately post episode 13 (T.R.A.C.K.S.) - spoiler if you haven't seen it yet.<br/>Phil sits with Skye and thinks over his role and his relationship with her</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Birds

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place immediately post episode and may container a spoiler if you haven't seen the episode yet.

_Uh-oh… Dad’s mad…_

Skye had announced it across the Bus’s lounge, getting Fitz and Simmons to erupt in tiny fits of laughter. They knew they weren’t in any trouble and they knew ‘Dad’ – Phil – wasn’t even particularly mad. It had been something silly, something inconsequential.

He’d set them up, in fact. Letting them ‘get away with’ pranks was a solid way to bond team members this young. It had worked countless times before and, if pressed, Phil would admit it was actually fun to watch unfold as well. Certainly better than the grueling ‘bonding’ activities he’d been put through when he’d been their age.

_Dad’s mad…_

Phil had never wanted children. The domesticity of such a thing had never appealed to him. He was happy with the way things were – building families out of teams before moving on to build others. He did not crave the permanence or stability of family life and he certainly did not want a life filled with diapers, scraped knees, and imaginary monsters under the bed.

He preferred the real kind.

But oddly, working with the youngest of agents and assets had become his specialty. He had a gift for working with a particular subset – troubled youths, as Fury defined them. They were the ones who were dangerously talented, not because of what they could do, but because of what had happened to them. They’d been abandoned, abused, neglected… cast adrift in a dangerous world and forced to face the monsters on their own. Become them, even.

Romanov was only twenty when he’d found her, covered in blood and struggling to comprehend why she was even still alive. Barton had been only nineteen, Johnson only sixteen… the list of his charges was impossibly long and impossibly young. All broken, fragile baby birds he’d helped to mend.

He never coddled or held their hands. He didn’t take their lip and he occasionally grounded them. It was all part of the plan. He gave them structure and expectation. He gave them trust and support. He let them fail and gave them opportunities to improve. He gave them someone who believed in them.

 He gave them someone to disappoint.

 _They_ were his children because if nothing else, he’d given them lives worth living. He hadn’t just taught them how to survive – they already knew how to do that – he’d taught them his values, his hopes, and his dreams as well. Then Phil had sent them to fly on their own. He was their proud papa watching them soar.

_Uh-oh… Dad’s mad…_

He was not mad. He was never mad; not at them and certainly not at Skye. But for some reason, those words just would not leave his head. They filtered over and over again through his mind as he watched her cold, still figure lie in the hyperbaric chamber.

The blood had not been wiped from her face. There hadn’t been time and now it threatened to stain the skin on her cheek.

It wasn’t acceptable to Phil. She’d hate seeing herself this way. If only he had been thinking more clearly at the time, he could have pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the clot away from her lips before they’d sealed the door. Then, maybe she could just be sleeping instead of slowly dying.

_Uh-oh…_

How many other times in his career had he sat in a similar position, watching the blood congeal on his baby birds? Why was this so different? Why was this so painful for him?

Because Skye was different and he knew it. Skye wasn’t broken and he wasn’t rebuilding her. She was rebuilding him. She was teaching him how to live his life and walk unafraid of the monsters. She had placed expectations on him.

She had given him someone to disappoint.

There was no laughter on the Bus now, no fits of giggles. Just a monster in the closet.

 _Uh-oh_ … _Dad’s mad…_

 

 


End file.
